SCOPUS: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=22981981100
Education
PhD degree in “Cognitive plasticity and rehabilitation”. Thesis entitled “Attentional modulations of pain perception: evidence from laser evoked potentials”. Social and Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory (Head: Prof. S.M. Aglioti), - Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 15/01/2010.
Doctoral visitor student at the GAMFI centre (Head: Dr. G. Iannetti), Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Genetics. University of Oxford, UK. 19/04/2009–16/10/2009.
Post-lauream internship and research activity at the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab (Head: Prof. S.M. Aglioti). Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 2006–2009.
Laurea (Master Degree) in Psychology: 110/110 cum laude - Experimental career - Faculty of Psychology 1. Sapienza University of Rome , Italy. 15/12/2005.
Pre-lauream internship and research activity at the Sleep Psychophysiology Laboratory (Head: Prof. L. De Gennaro, tutor: Dr. G. Curcio), Department of Psychology. Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 2003–2005.
Diploma Liceo Classico (High School), 80/100. 1998–1999.
Academic positions
Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, University of Essex, UK. 01/09/2015 to date.
Post-doctoral associate at the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab (Head: Prof. S.M. Aglioti). Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 01/10/2011 – 28/02/2014.
Post-doctoral associate at the Neurophysiology of Pain and Sensory Systems Lab (Head: Dr. G. Iannetti), Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, UK. 31/03/2010 – 31/05/2011.
Teaching, supervising and tutoring
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). (01/12/2016).
Teaching. Course of research methods in Neuroscience: Psychophysiology techniques (2006-2007). Course of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience (2013-2014, 2014-2015). Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Course of Psychology (2013-2014). Unitelma Sapienza (telematic University). Several lectures, seminar and classes at the Department of Psychology, University of Essex.
Supervising. Several undergraduate and Msc students, 1 MSD student (Miss Milla Grigorova) and 3 PhD students (Mr. Istvan Gyimes, Mr. Achilleas Pavlou, Miss Chengetai Charidza) at the Department of Psychology, University of Essex. 2015 to date. Former students: PhD students (Miss Katharina Koch) and 1 postgraduate student (Miss Valentina Nicolardi) at Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome.
Tutoring. Personal and academic tutor of several undergraduate students at the Department of Psychology, University of Essex. 2010 to date. Former students: PhD student (Miss Irene Ronga). Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, UK. Postgraduate student (Miss Chen Zhao). School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
Administrative and leadership roles
- Co-ordinator of “Believing is Seeing. The power of belief and suggestion on the mind and brain” PS508 module
- Internal assessor for Higher Education Academy applications at the University of Essex (CADENZA framework).
- Internal assessor for PhD panel selection at the Department of Psychology of the University of Essex.
- Internal assessor for PhD board at the Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome.
- Member of the Education committee of the European Pain Federation (EFIC). Tasked with the preparation of the Clinical Pain Psychology curriculum.
Grants and awards
Bial foundation research grant. Programme 2016/2017. 25/11/2016. (45.000 €).
Department Research Promotion Fund awarded by the Psychology Department at University of Essex (2015/2016). (4000 £).
Travel grant awarded by the Organizing Committee of the Error Signals from the Brain - 7th Mismatch Negativity Conference (MMN 2015). University of Leipzig. 8–11/09/2015. (250 €).
Starting Research grant awarded by Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 01/08/2013. (3000 €).
EFIC Grunenthal Grant (E-G-G) 2012. Grant awarded by the European chapters of IASP (EFIC®) in collaboration with Grünenthal. 22/05/2013. (22.500 €).
Starting Research grant awarded by Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 12/10/2012. (2000 €).
Financial aid awarded by the IASP (14th World Congress on Pain. Milan, Italy). 27–31/08/2012. (400 €).
Small Research Grant awarded by the British Academy (year 2009-10 Round 2). 01/11/2010–31/10/2011. (6300 £).
Travel grant awarded by the “Guarantors of Brain” (13th IASP World Congress on Pain. Montreal, Canada). 29/08/2010–2/09/2010. (500 £).
Scholarship for professional training abroad granted by Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 30/11/2009–30/11/2010: (16800 €).
Faculty grant for thesis abroad. Visitor student at the Psychology Department, University of Essex, UK (Head: Prof. R. Russo). MTHR research programme: induced effects of mobile phone electromagnetic signal on human performance. 24/01/2005–13/4/2005: (2600 €).
ERASMUS European programme scholarship. Visitor student at the Department of experimental Psychology (Head: Prof. A. Vandierendonck), Faculty of Psychology and educational sciences. University of Ghent, Belgium. 15/01/2004–15/07/2004. (3000 €).
Ongoing collaborations
Salvatore Maria Aglioti (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy), Bhismadev Chakrabarti (University of Reading; Autism Research Center, UK), Li Hu (Southwest University, Chongqing, China), Paolo Riva (University of Milano Bicocca), Enrico Schulz (University of Munich), Gabor Stefanics (University of Zurich).
Scientific publications
1. Valentini E., Gyimes I.L. Visual cues of threat elicit greater steady-state electroencephalographic responses than visual reminders of death. Biological Psychology 2018 Nov 139: 73-86.
2. Stefanics G., Heinzle J., Czigler I., Valentini E., Stephan, K.E. Timing of repetition suppression of event‐related potentials to unattended objects. European Journal of Neuroscience 2018 May 1-10
3. Valentini E., Nicolardi V., Aglioti S.M. Visual reminders of death enhance nociceptive-related cortical responses and event-related alpha desynchronization. Biological Psychology 2017 Oct 129:121-130.
4. Torta D.M., Legrain V., Mouraux A., Valentini E. Attention to pain! A neurocognitive perspective on attentional modulation of pain in neuroimaging studies. Cortex. 2017 Apr 89;115:21-32.
5. Valentini E., Nicolardi V., Aglioti S.M. Painful engrams: Oscillatory correlates of working memory for phasic nociceptive laser stimuli. Brain and cognition 2017 Jul 89:120-134.
6. Nicolardi V., Valentini E. Commentary: Top-down and bottom-up modulation of pain-induced oscillations. Frontiers in human neuroscience. 2016;10.
7. Valentini E., Koch K., Nicolardi V., Aglioti S.M. Mortality salience modulates cortical responses to painful somatosensory stimulation: evidence from slow wave activity. NeuroImage 2015 Oct;120(15): 12-24.
8. Valentini E., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Seeing one’s own painful hand positioned in the contralateral space reduces subjective reports of pain and modulates laser evoked potentials. The Journal of Pain. 2015 Feb 24; pii: S1526-5900(15)00534-9. (Journal’s cover).
9. Martini M., Lee M., Valentini E., Iannetti GD. Intracortical modulation, and not spinal inhibition, mediates placebo analgesia. European Journal of Neuroscience. 2015 Feb;41(4):498-504.
10. Zhao C., Valentini E., Hu L. Crossmodal mismatch responses. Experimental Brain Research. 2015 Feb;233(2):617-29.
11. Valentini E., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. PLoS ONE, 2014 9(11): e112324.
12. Valentini E., Martini M., Lee M., Aglioti S.M., Iannetti GD. Seeing facial expressions enhances placebo analgesia. Pain, 2014 pii: S0304-3959(13)00639-8.
13. Porciello G., Crostella F., Liuzza M.T., Valentini E., Aglioti S.M. rTMS-induced virtual lesion of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) alters the control of reflexive shifts of social attention triggered by pointing hands. Neuropsychologia, 2014 Jul;59:148-56.
14. Hu L., Valentini E., Zhang Z.G., Liang M., Iannetti G.D. The primary somatosensory cortex contributes to the latest part of the cortical response elicited by nociceptive somatosensory stimuli in humans. Neuroimage, 2013 Aug 31; 84C:383-393.
15. Hu L., Zhao C., Li H., Valentini E. Mismatch responses evoked by nociceptive stimuli. Psychophysiology, 2013 Feb; 50(2):158-73.
16. Martini M., Valentini E., Aglioti S.M. Emotional conflict in a model modulates nociceptive processing in an onlooker: a laser-evoked potentials study. Exp Brain Res, 2013 Mar; 225(2):237-45.
17. Ronga I., Valentini E., Mouraux A., Iannetti G.D. Novelty is not enough: laser-evoked potentials are determined by stimulus saliency, not absolute novelty. Journal of Neurophysiology, 2013 Feb; 109(3):692-701.
18. Valentini E., Betti V., Hu L., Aglioti S.M. Hypnotic modulation of pain perception and of brain activity triggered by nociceptive laser stimuli. Cortex, 2013 Feb;49(2):446-62.
19. Hu L., Peng W.W., Valentini E., Zhang Z.G., Hu Y. Multiple functions of pain induced suppression of alpha band electroencephalographic oscillations. The Journal of Pain, 2013 Jan;14(1):89-99.
20. Wang W.Y., Hu L., Valentini E., Xie X.B., Cui H.Y., Hu Y. Dynamic characteristics of multisensory facilitation and inhibition. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 2012 Oct;6(5):409-419.
21. Valentini E., Liang M., Aglioti S.M., Iannetti G.D. Seeing touch and pain in a stranger modulates the cortical responses elicited by somatosensory but not auditory stimulation. Human Brain Mapping, 2012 Dec;33(12):2873-84.
22. Legrain V., Mancini F., Sambo C.F., Torta D.M., Ronga I., Valentini E. Cognitive aspects of nociception and pain. Bridging neurophysiology and neuropsychology. Neurophysiologie Clinique, 2012 Oct;42(5):325-36.
23. Valentini E., Koch K. Fine-grained analysis of shared neural circuits between perceived and observed pain: implications for the study of empathy for pain. Journal of Neurophysiology, 2012 Oct;108(7):1805-7.
24. Valentini E., Hu L., Chakrabarti B., Aglioti S.M., Hu Y.,Iannetti G.D. The primary somatosensory cortex is involved in the earliest stages of nociceptive processing. NeuroImage, 2012 Jan 16;59(2):1571-81.
25. Torta D., Liang M., Valentini E., Mouraux A., Iannetti GD. Dishabituation of laser-evoked EEG responses: dissecting the effect of certain and uncertain changes in stimulus location. Experimental Brain Research, 2012 May;218(3):361-72.Feb 17.
26. Valentini E. The role of perceptual expectation on repetition suppression: a quest to dissect the differential contribution of probability of occurrence and event predictability. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2011; 5:143.
27. Valentini E., Torta D., Mouraux A., Iannetti GD. Dishabituation of laser-evoked EEG responses: dissecting the effect of certain and uncertain changes in stimulus modality. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2011 Oct;23(10):2822-37.
28. Valentini E. The role of anterior insula and anterior cingulate in empathy for pain. Journal of Neurophysiology, 2010 Aug;104(2):584-6.
29. Valentini E., Ferrara M., Presaghi F., De Gennaro L., Curcio G. Republished review: Systematic review and meta-analysis of psychomotor effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 2011; 87:643-651.
30. Valentini E., Ferrara M., Presaghi F., De Gennaro L., Curcio G. Systematic review and meta-analysis of psychomotor effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2010 Oct; 67(10):708-16.
31. Curcio G., Valentini E., Moroni F., Ferrara M., De Gennaro L., Bertini M. Psychomotor performance is not influenced by brief repeated exposures to mobile phones. Bioelectromagnetics, 2008 Apr;29(3):237-41.
32. Curcio G., Valentini E. Response to comments by Balzano and Swicord on "Neurophysiological effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields on humans: A comprehensive review". Bioelectromagnetics, 2008 July; 29(5):331 – 411.
33. Valentini E., Curcio G., Moroni F., Ferrara M., De Gennaro L., Bertini M. Neurophysiological effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields on humans: a comprehensive review. Bioelectromagnetics, 2007; Sep, 28(6):415-32.
Publications in non-peer reviewed journals
1. Valentini E., Aglioti SM, Chakrabarti B. The true size of placebo analgesia: Concordant neural and behavioural measures of placebo analgesia during experimental acute pain. bioRxiv, 2018.
2. Valentini E., Curcio G. Mobile phones-like electromagnetic fields effects on human psychomotor performance. In Z. Yan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Mobile Phone Behavior (Volumes 1, 2, & 3). Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2015. 694-704.
3. Betti V. and Valentini E. La condivisione empatica del dolore altrui, DIPAV quaderni, n.23 – 2008. Franco Angeli. Padova, Italy.
Conference presentations
1. Gyimes I.L., Valentini E. Is there anything special about death in the brain? A Frequency-tagging EEG study of death anxiety. British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience (BACN) conference. Glasgow, UK, 6-7 September 2018.
2. Valentini E., Fetter E. Temporal Estimation of Treatment Preferences in Fibromyalgia Patients. European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) conference. Galway, Ireland, 21-25 August 2018.
3. Valentini E., Nicolardi V. The effect of visual reminders of death on brain responses with and without concomitant painful stimulation. International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS). Vienna, Austria, 23-25 March 2017.
4. Valentini E., Nicolardi V., Aglioti S.M. “Pain engrams”: behavioural and neural correlates of nociceptive working memory. 9th EFIC European Congress on pain. Vienna, Austria, 2-5 September 2015.
5. Koch K., Valentini E., Aglioti S.M. The behavioural and neurophysiological correlates of nociception and pain in severe grief. Implications of Research on the Neuroscience of Affect, Attachment and Social Cognition conference, April 25-26, 2015, London, GB.
6. Nicolardi V., Aglioti S.M., Valentini E. Electrophysiological evidence for the effect of visual reminders of death during threatening somatosensory stimulation. Neuronus IBRO e IRUN Neuroscience forum. Krakow, Poland. April 17-19 2015.
7. Valentini E., Nicolardi V., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Thoughts of death modulate the cortical responses to threatening stimuli. 15th World Congress on Pain. Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 6-11, 2014.
8. Valentini E., Zhao C., Hu L., 2013. Functional microstate analysis as a means to assess the effect of stimulus repetition on nociceptive evoked potentials. 8th EFIC European Congress on pain. Florence, Italy, October 8-12, 2013.
9. Valentini E., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Body representation of death awareness: a somatosensory-specific effect of mortality salience. XXI National Congress of the Italian Society of Psychophysiology. Lecce, Italy. October 24-26 2013.
10. Valentini E., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Vision analgesia and arms crossing analgesia: do they interact? Satellite meeting of 8th EFIC European Congress on pain. Neural circuits underlying nociception and pain and their plasticity. Heidelberg, Germany, 6-8 October, 2013.
11. Koch K., Aglioti S.M., Valentini E. The painful awareness of death: lack of repetition suppression following reminders of mortality is specific to the nociceptive input. Poster Presentation: 3rd European Workshop on Social Neuroscience; 2013 July 24-28, Ghent, BG.
12. Porciello G., Crostella F., Liuzza M.T., Valentini E., S.M. Aglioti., 2013. rTMS-induced virtual lesion of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) increases reflexive shifts of social attention triggered by hand-pointing. Oxford, UK, May, 4-5.
13. Valentini E., Zhao C., Peng W.W., Hu L., 2012. Mismatch responses evoked by nociceptive stimuli: a preliminary investigation. 14th IASP World Congress on pain. Milan, Italy, August 26-31, 2012.
14. Hu L., Valentini E., Liang M., Iannetti G.D., 2012. The primary somatosensory cortex generates a late, lateralized positive component (P4) of the human laser-evoked potentials (LEPs). 14th IASP World Congress on pain. Milan, Italy, August 26-31, 2012.
15. Hu L., Valentini E., Chakrabarti B., Aglioti S.M., Hu Y., Iannetti G.D. The primary somatosensory cortex largely contributes to the early part of the cortical response elicited by nociceptive stimuli. 7th Congress of the European Federation of IASP Chapters (EFIC). Hamburg, Germany. September 21-24 2011.
16. Ronga I., Valentini E., Mouraux A., Iannetti G.D. Direction matters: Laser evoked potentials are determined by stimulus saliency not by stimulus absolute novelty. 7th Congress of the European Federation of IASP Chapters (EFIC). Hamburg, Germany. September 21-24 2011.
17. Chakrabarti B., Valentini E., Aglioti S.M. “Empathy Modulates the Neural Correlates of Placebo Analgesia: A Laser Evoked Potential (LEP) Study”. International conference of the Society for Neuroscience, November 13-17 2010, San Diego, CA.
18. Martini M., Cannella S., Ruggiero A., Porciello G., Valentini E. “Observing emotional facial expressions in a model modulated the pain pathway of an onlooker. A LEP study". II° Meeting of the Federation of European Societies of Neuropsychology (FESN) 22–24 September 2010 Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
19. Valentini E., Torta D., Mouraux A, Iannetti G. “Determinants of laser evoked EEG responses: effect of predictable and unpredictable changes in stimulus modality”. 13th IASP World Congress on Pain. Montreal, Canada, August 29th - September 2nd, 2010.
20. Valentini E., Betti V., Aglioti S.M. “Hypnotic modulation of sensory and affective dimensions of pain: A laser evoked potentials study”. “Pain in Europe VI”. 6th congress of the european federation of IASP chapters (EFIC). Lisbon, Portugal. September 9-12 2009.
Oral communications, invited talks, seminars
1. Valentini E. Psychophysiology of bodily and psychological threat. Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Italy. June 18 2018.
2. Valentini E. Koch K., Nicolardi V. Chair of the symposium entitled Electroencephalographic advancements in the study of pain and of its cognitive and affective modulations. Talk entitled Impact of reminders of death on pain and sensory representation as measured by electroencephalographic activity in healthy individuals. The 3rd international conference of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN). Porto, Portugal. June 23-26 2016.
3. Valentini E. Representation of potentially noxious events in the brain: quest for a preattentive nociceptive sensory trace. NEURONUS 2016 IBRO & IRUN Neuroscience Forum. Krakow, Poland. April 22-24 2016.
4. Valentini E. Processing of nociceptive deviant input in the brain: is there a real preattentive nociceptive-related mismatch response? 7th Conference on the Mismatch Negativity (MMN). Leipzig, Germany. September 8-11 2015.
5. Koch K., Valentini E., Aglioti S.M. Soul Pain: the influence of persistent grief on sensory processing and perception of nociceptive stimuli. Workshop on Experimental Psychopathology, Rome, Italy. March 20-21, 2015.
6. Valentini E. Functional significance of nociceptive event-related potentials: evidence from EEG studies of the somatosensory system. Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires, Argentina. October 14 2014.
7. Valentini E. Repetition suppression of nociceptive event-related potentials: evidence from EEG studies of the somatosensory system. Repetition suppression summer school (RESUS). University of Jena, Germany. September 7-12 2014.
8. Valentini E., Koch K., Aglioti S.M. Pensare alla propria morte: modulazione delle risposte corticali a stimoli nocicettivi. XIX national congress of The Italian Association of Psychology (AIP), Experimental psychology section. Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. September 16-18 2013.
9. Valentini E. Attentional modulations of pain: evidence from laser evoked EEG potentials. Southwest University, Chongqing, China, June 29th 2012.
Public talks – dissemination
1. Cafè Scientifique – Physical and social pain in the brain. Colchester (Essex, UK), December 13th 2017.
2. Pint of Science festival - The denial of death 2.0: A neuroscience perspective on fear of death in humans. Colchester (Essex, UK), May 14th 2018.
Professional Memberships
Member of The International Association for Study of Pain (IASP), The European Health Psychology Society (EHPS), The European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN), The Italian National order of Psychologist.
Scientific and Editorial services
- External member for PhD defense jury (candidate Miss A. Clauwaert) at the Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Ghent.
- Member of the doctoral board of professors in the International PhD programme in Psychology and Social Neuroscience (Cognitive, Social and Affective Neuroscience – CoSAN; Sapienza University of Rome).
- Member of the scientific committee of the Paolo Procacci Foundation.
Reviewer for the following scientific Journals: Attention Perception and Psychophysics, Behavioural Brain Research, Brain, Brain Topography, British Journal of Psychology, Clinical Neurophysiology, Cerebral Cortex, Cognitive Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience, European Journal of Neuroscience, European Journal of Pain, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Human Brain Mapping, NeuroImage, Neuropsychologia, Pain Medicine, Plos One, Psychological Research, Psychophysiology, Rheumatology, Scientific Reports, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience, The Journal of Neuroscience.
- Academic Editor for Plos One.
- Review Editor for Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience and Guest Associate Editor for Perception Science.
- Reviewer for the following granting institutions: Arthritis Research UK, European Research Council, Flanders institute, Pain Relief Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, and University of Bochum.
- Rater for the NHS dissemination centre